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iPhone Air

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Re: iPhone Air

#271

Post by shshahshsusus »

Alright, buckle up — here’s a *Curb Your Enthusiasm scene* where Larry takes the iPhone Air press release way too personally at the Apple Store.

---

### Scene: Apple Store, Santa Monica

*Larry* walks in, holding his old iPhone with a cracked screen. He approaches a blue-shirted *Apple Genius*.

*Larry:* So I hear you got this new iPhone Air. Thinnest phone ever, huh? Five-point-six millimeters. What is this, a phone or a Wheat Thin?

*Genius:* It’s our most advanced design yet. Stronger, lighter—

*Larry:* Stronger? If it’s so strong, why is it thinner than a Ritz cracker? You ever eaten a Ritz cracker? Crumbles right in your hand! That’s what I’m gonna be holding here. Crumbs! Phone crumbs in my pocket!

*Genius:* Actually, it’s titanium. Aerospace grade.

*Larry:* Oh! Aerospace. Yeah, good. Because when I’m playing Sudoku on the toilet, I really want NASA technology under my thumbs. Very important. “Houston, I got a number two problem.”

*Genius:* The new 48-megapixel Fusion camera—

*Larry:* Fusion? What am I, splitting atoms now? I just want to take a picture of a sandwich. I don’t need the Manhattan Project in my pocket. And the front camera’s square? Square! Cameras are round, wheels are round, even faces are round. You make it square, now I look like SpongeBob in every selfie.

*Genius:* Well, the square sensor lets you take landscape photos while holding your phone vertically.

*Larry:* Vertically? Vertically?! Oh, thank you, Apple, you’ve saved me from rotating my wrist. What a terrible burden it’s been. Centuries of humanity struggling, and finally Apple says, “Don’t move your wrist, Larry, we’ll do it for you.” Unbelievable.

*Genius:* It also has all-day battery life.

*Larry:* All-day? What’s “all day”? My day? Your day? A raccoon’s day? Be specific! At 11:58 p.m. the phone dies and you go, “Oh, sorry Larry, guess your day’s over!” I still got two episodes of Columbo left, pal!

*Genius:* It’s also eSIM only.

*Larry:* Oh, fantastic. No physical SIM. So if I lose signal, I can’t even take it out, blow on it, do the old Nintendo trick. I just stare at my \$1,000 “air” sandwich and pray. That’s the feature? Praying?

*Genius:* It starts at \$999—

*Larry:* Nine-ninety-nine! For a phone that could slip between two couch cushions and vanish forever. You should sell it with a metal detector. “Find your iPhone Air before it suffocates under the ottoman!”

(Larry storms out, muttering.)

*Larry:* Thin phone, thick price. What a world.

---

Want me to *write another one where Larry’s actually at the launch keynote*, interrupting Tim Cook from the audience like a heckler?

Re: iPhone Air

#273

Post by dan353hehe »

Nition wrote: post #249

It's more the other two dimensions that I want shrunk. Did anyone think their phone was too thick to fit in their pocket?

No kidding. I just want one that I can use one handed again. I’m on the IPhone SE, have hands that can play an octave + 2 additional keys on a piano, and I can’t reach the whole screen with a single hand.

I’m probably just holding it wrong.

Re: iPhone Air

#274

Post by tartoran »

DennisP wrote: post #245
jdprgm wrote: post #187

Can someone that is actually interested in this explain the appeal? Thin on its own I get but thin with a giant bump 100% defeats the whole point for me. Seems clear at this point there is little hope of them engineering their way into thin cameras.

It still takes up less room in your pocket.

If it fits in the first place...

Re: iPhone Air

#275

Post by computerdork »

jdprgm wrote: post #187

Can someone that is actually interested in this explain the appeal? Thin on its own I get but thin with a giant bump 100% defeats the whole point for me. Seems clear at this point there is little hope of them engineering their way into thin cameras.

It's about the size and even more importantly the weight. I like small, light phones (I currently have the iphone 13 mini). I want something small that I can slip into my pocket and it's not this brick bouncing around as take a walk.

Although, I'm not a big phone user though, mainly use it when I'm outside of the house. In the house, I'll just use my laptop.

Re: iPhone Air

#276

Post by bconsta »

foobarian wrote: post #229
dzink wrote: post #208

This has a couple of up sides. 1. Biggest is that Apple can finally tell if people really want a thinner phone (I don’t). Maybe once they find out the answer, they can finally start using the space more productively. 2. They mentioned local LLM in passing, but this is the biggest possible selling point of the executives actually back real work on making them consumer-level easy. Have a LLM marketplace. Let users sub-…

Sigh. I can't stand the camera bump. I would run not walk to the nearest Apple store with all my savings if they made a phone where the camera bump is made flush by adding thickness elsewhere to match, filled with extra battery. Thing would last for weeks. Ah well back to reality.

Pixel 9a is probably the closest to what you're describing on the market today.

Re: iPhone Air

#277

Post by jghn »

Nition wrote: post #249

It's more the other two dimensions that I want shrunk. Did anyone think their phone was too thick to fit in their pocket?

Yep. I keep holding out for a new Mini. They keep making phones wider and taller. Thanks Apple!

Re: iPhone Air

#278

Post by School-Cotton »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #216
creer wrote: post #167

"Impossibly thin" is right in line with Patrick McGee's "Apple in China" who argues that the main reason for Apple's designs is to keep imitators at bay by introducing manufacturing challenges that only they can meet. Indeed impossible at the time of release. One generation after the other. He estimates this gains them about 6 months of headway. Tough world. (Yes, to be fair, there is more to this new phone than just…

Is anyone buying an iPhone because it's slightly thinner than other phones? I've never heard anyone say the width of the phone was their reason for picking an iPhone, or any phone for that matter.

There are certainly people buying iPhones essentially for fashion/status-symbol reasons: i.e., because they look visually different from other phones, whether that is because of thinness or anything else. Why else would so many Android devices have copied the FaceID notch so soon after it was released?

Re: iPhone Air

#279

Post by stetrain »

ramesh31 wrote: post #209
jdprgm wrote: post #187

Can someone that is actually interested in this explain the appeal? Thin on its own I get but thin with a giant bump 100% defeats the whole point for me. Seems clear at this point there is little hope of them engineering their way into thin cameras.

>"Thin on its own I get but thin with a giant bump 100% defeats the whole point for me. Seems clear at this point there is little hope of them engineering their way into thin cameras." I have this recurring vision of what could have been if we never lost Steve before the industry went whole hog in on the camera bump fad. It goes something like this: SCENE: Steve Jobs' office on the eve of the iPhone 7 release "Hey St…

I’d rather have the world with nice cameras on my phone than the one where the back is flat for aesthetic design reasons.

Re: iPhone Air

#280

Post by geoffeg »

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #262
Nition wrote: post #249

It's more the other two dimensions that I want shrunk. Did anyone think their phone was too thick to fit in their pocket?

Yes. In the era of slim pants.

Funny, most of the people presenting on the event stream, especially women, were wearing very loose pants.
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